Bruins Get NESN Off To A Strong Start In Ratings

From NESN:

NESN’s coverage of the Bruins 1-0 overtime win over the Capitals in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinal Game #1 set a new first game of a playoff series ratings record for NESN with a 11.6 average household rating in the Boston DMA and a 19.3 share. The 11.6 rating is also the 7th highest Bruins playoff rating in NESN history.

NESN’s coverage of the Bruins-Capitals series continues on Saturday (4/14) with one hour of pre-game coverage from TD Garden beginning at 2 pm with Bruins Face-Off LIVE. Dale Arnold, Gord Kluzak, Jack Edwards, Andy Brickley and Naoko Funayama will team up for NESN’s pre and post-game coverage. NESN will also deliver complete post-game coverage immediately after the game on NESNplus with Bruins Overtime LIVE presented by Ace Ticket. Fans can visit NESN.com/NESNplus for the NESNplus channel in their area.

BSMfan – I think Bruins/Caps is a much more marketable national series (two American markets, defending Stanley Cup champs, Ovechkin) than Rangers-Ottawa. They don’t have an exclusive for the NY market anyway and it doesn’t figure to be a particularly good series. Besides all the games are now on nationally anyway (CNBC and NHL Network are also showing games) so it’s not like it wasn’t available elsewhere on the dial.

Sorry for the multiple posts but it’s worth noting NESN can’t celebrate for long since, allegedly, NBC takes over everything in the next round. Jack Edwards let that slip yesterday on the Big Show — apparently NBC/NBC Sports Channel will want whatever the match-up involves Bruins as an exclusive so NESN won’t have any 2nd round games. Can’t imagine his intel will be off.

Yeah, NHL made those plans known earlier in the year, I think, or at least reiterated it before.

On the other post, I made the suggestion that, someday, Comcast NE (NBCSports) would bid for the Bruins/NESN rights. Why not? NBCSports wants to own everything hockey. And, yes, while Jacobs owns part of NESN with the Bruins, would he turn down some ownership stake if they threw it at him?

To me, I think Comcast wants their RSNs owning as much hockey as possible.